Sweet Child of Mine
by IronGrey
Summary: Rebel before the rebellion (Ep1/2 crossover).
1. Prelude to Apothecary

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Prelude to Apothecary

It was a not too uncommon thing for a company with a million reasons to go flat broke –seeming, as a matter of course, to be a sudden thing among the stock market and financial journals, when any honest observer would have foreseen destruction in the rampant decay of a corporation. However this may be, that often enough the chief executive would find himself suddenly in the mood to retire (and that with a pension ten times the size of all his non-managerial employees combined), it was sometimes the case when, be it youth or vigor or pride or hubris, a CEO might often take the road less travelled among his peers: put the crown jewels of the company's capital on the market, only to have every one of their competitors bid on the thing –be it intellectual property, a vast skyscraper, or a contract for ten thousand artillery pieces, this sudden interest in what was really a failing company would explode the value of it, perhaps giving management time to "pack their bags" as it were. Or, far less often than any imperial god would allow, last chance to get their collective act together.

So it came to pass that a particular building –a once-elegant skyscraper of white marble and glass, proportionally ten times higher than wide with the profile of antiquity's finest obelisk, had suffered so many such sell-outs and buy-outs and takeovers and subsidies and half-hearted renovations that all that was left of the actual structure desparate of any and all "market rumours" or "financial reports" was in point of fact a phallic husk of stone and steel, a horribly decayed finger of accusation pointing interminably heavenward in allegation to any all-powerful divinity, or appeal to one. Murders were done in her basement corridors, and crime-lords watched the blood moon as they ascended through this tower, crawling from lower shadows to sodomize what remained of civilization.

But in the fullness of time something did, in fact, happen, by the goodness of men: some measure of dumb and even stupid willfullness was for once a boon to the crumbling shame. The dice had been rolled far too often in a straight succession of snake's eyes for our tower: and it was an ancient and holy calling that entered, stage right, to shake the plot (and tower) of villains to the point where transformation was palpable as the dawn, sublime like an hero's love for his princess, but just as temporal as the lives of men.

By and by any race would build ways of counting, or measuring, or worshipping the night sky and its diamond-flow signature, the Great Sky River. It would be then only natural that any government, comprised of even a single race, would of necessity –even were it the most base of any psychologies—claim some knowledge of what stars and planets they dreamed of all the days of their lives. That the more maniacally astrological would demand an organization of sorts designed singly toward this ubiquitous calling destined such an Order be established in what was then an infant Republic. Immortality being nothing less than ubiquity in time, though a bit skewed through the years the Order so long established (fundamentally unquenchable, really) yet endured.

So it was that the tower was surveyed by a Father Avrael; a synod of the more astute among them was put to the task of aquiring the place as an observatory; a tribunal interviewed those qualified for the position of abbot; and, entirely against his rather frustrated and conflicting designs, Father Imrael was instructed that he and he alone held the responsibility of establishing what was currently nothing more than a vast crack-house into a new observatory fit for the re-cataloguing of every single star in the night sky from the relative position of Coruscant.

However, upon pointing out the vastness of this undertaking, and the question of safety which the structure held for any single, invading monk, the synod met again, proposing –as, what with proper timing and patience, bankruptcy claims had made the purchase of the tower all but scott-free—that they would fill their stoic coffers with a little bit of capital by allowing a particularly infamous, particularly retired and since particularly entrepreneuring former-member to purchase this very (his own!) building on the cheap, with the understanding that he mind his ancient and sacred calling enough that his retirement not be utterly useless and without benefit to the Galaxy if he would but renovate his purchase and log some time into a project that would surely take collectively several human lifetimes to entirely complete.

He obliged, and was on the next transport to sector 0, 0, 0 before sunrise.


	2. Enter the Infidel

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Enter the Infidel

With the speed and economy of a shuttle service that had sveltely handled those extraordinary emergencies that come up one in a million trips well over ten thousand times, the transport was landed, unloaded of passengers and cargo, received a bit of fuel –by "bit" to mean within a single barrel, or hair's breadth, from that which will barely allow god's graces and the combustability of fumes to get the thing from A to B—and was off again, with a blast and a blur the wind was left behind, and men were left pointing fingers in the air and whispering.

A vast ape of a being violently shoved the back-turned form of his arch-nemesis, spilling the long twig of explosively powerful sinew up and over, in an extraordinary spectacle of flexibility, several personal baggages, a forklift, half a dozen empty barrels of fuel, and a crackhead asleep in their midst (who remained sleeping). While the two port employees performed their favorite game, actors playing out their own hatreds, their fellows anonymously made their way about tossing bags to the passengers. It was fragile work done with the grace of a sledge hammer. And the people, of course, did nor said nor thought absolutely nothing: mum was the word for words already spoken: the excuse was probably something having to do with scheduling difficulties (but not too tight a calendar to stop the two brawlers), the fact they couldn't stop every breakage anyway (irreverant that they were obliged to try at all), union work agreements didn't allow the passengers to paw for their own gear in the unloading pile (ignoring the whole vast complication that was the phrase "personal property"), and besides, ran the thought-stopping cliché, which was left unspoken unless any of the passengers should take action for his own sake: "they're just doing their job." Was there not a Cool Hand Luke among them? No, as a matter of fact, there wasn't. Ninety-nine-and-several-thousand-score-of-nines percent of the time, there wasn't; this current civilization was a bit too aged for that, and in time, who knows how much further that drear decimal should peal? But there was always a remnant, and even in the middle of every Dark Age, they can yet be heard, screaming and shaking their fists and shaking the towers and the counsels of the Great.

So one fellow stood out from the crowd, walking slowly, with a confidence that was perceived as arrogance and elitism, on healthy legs and with a strong back that antithesized the "proper" way that was now, with psychosocial repurcussions that boggled the mind, "cool" to walk (!). Immediately, as he had violated the thought/action-control mechanisms in their embryonic minds, the cruelest and most violent of the waiting passengers immediately began yelling those slogans and cliches that they used to deceive their own minds and stop their own thoughts. "They're just doing their job," as was mentioned previously, being chief among such slogans, the tall, offensively handsome humanoid looked over his shoulder with a face so tired as to infect with melancholy; he knew their hearts, that only volumne and violence mattered to these, as much as the more pathetic, more silent mass about them. So he paid them no mind, as yet; though they lived by the law of pain, they both loved and feared violence, and so he was in no danger –yet. But now he had approached the pile –and his few things—where the union workers were slaving away destroying everything fragile any fool had packed. The shock of his insolence, the stench of his foreign cologne and the proximity to which they could now smell it, the odasity the ignorance the stupidity the… maybe he was retarded, one of the workers ventured, in a whiny female soprano that increased in volumne through the entire mouthful, so that if she had the skill of making sentences longer than seven words her voice could have stared in an opera. But their words other than these, which were many; and the complications of their shadowy minds, which were many and simple; are far too vast a list to be recalled anywere but the very Akashic records themselves.

And yet he paid them no mind. He did not care about blundering through a minefield of social incumerabces: rather, he was intentionally jumping from mine to mine, to follow the metaphore. A thin, gentle hand, white as death and almost blue, deliberately travelled from his immediate vicinity to one of his only two bags. The nearest voice –that damned harpsicord female one—tore even higher in the long throat from which it came, bulging, rheumatic eyes so wide he almost smiled thinking they would never be shut again: she stared as if she might bore into his head, the head of an infidel, a defiler, an apostate, a wrecker of the social System, an invading party, a violator of The Way It Works. It was with a religious zeal that she, and her summoned accomplices, swarmed up and about him with battery on their minds; a thing unmatched since the Catholic church swarmed against Galileo once he, no longer just an impertinent in forums of debate, dared to PUBLISH  a book of heresy: no longer a mere eccentric, he had become a heretic. So it was that these same dark passions were now aimed at the tall, gentle invader. But he was soon surrounded, and such was a bit of an hairy situation, for it was that the mob tore to pieces the wrong Cicero in the play. Letum ubique, indeed, but only if he was a normal man, and that, without firearms; but no normal man would have, literally, crossed so many lines. They had not the strength.

With a dispassionate face, but concentrated mind, our man grabbed his two bags, and made his way out of the crowd that, to a man, though screaming in his ears, subconsciously stayed at least three feet away: he stalked the middle of a bubble within a surrounding riot, ignoring the thunderstorm of accusations and venom and spit, marching to his observatory.

HIS observatory! The feeling brought a thin but infectiously warm though almost childish smile to his face, just as Judas remembered to make them all not be able to recall a single feature of his face.


	3. Getting to Know You

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Getting to Know You

Judas wore an almost loose-fitting silk shirt, rising from his wrists and waist to a turtleneck collar in a lovely navy blue shining like the lazy swells of the Pacific at noon; encasing his torso was a fine three-button suede vest, in a shade of midnight blue so dark as to be indistinguishable from black to the old and those races of lesser eyesight. His belt was black leather with a high sheen; the buckle was of blue steel; the genuinely black pants, though lined with silk on the interior, were of a finely-treated black suede on the outside; on his feet were steel-toed iron-shod leather boots wrapped from round the arch to halfway to the knee. On his finger he wore a sapphire ring like a cobalt hole; in his hand he nursed a golden chalice, from which he sipped distilled water cold as ice.

His race was not human, nor half-human as one would mistake. Rather, that noble brow and Roman nose and chin strong enough to chew concrete owed their birth to another world. That uncanny white skin –or was it a very, very light shade of blue?—was soft as the silk it was dressed in, being made for a home with more ice and less air. It would be a mistake to say he was not indeed masculine: there were veins and strong sinews visible enough along those long, graceful hands; only, no stubble grew on that proud and sad face of his, nor could it grow there. Indeed, what graceful, straight, heavy, sholder-length hair he had, running straight back from a youthful line across his forehead, was not even a train of _dead cells_. They were rather living folicles, transparent and clear as that of a polar bear, giving him a gray-blue head of hair on a sunny day, or turn his head aflame at sunset. But not merely for decoration or absorption of excess solar radiation, the living trains of cells were _sense-organs_ almost unique among sentient beings: a physical sixth sense, the ability to detect the heat of blood, the murmur of a pulse, the pounding of a heart, even a mile away. It's true, those big violet doe-eyes had learned to subdue the "volumne" of such sensations in a crowd, of sheer necessity.

All in all, his kind, for which few know the proper name (though the vulgar modern-Galactic _ikcythian_ will suffice for us here), consider themselves nothing like humans, and rather consider us hairy pink apes: that less sanitary, horribly unsterile, quick-dying, un-beautiful race with which they were often mistaken. As a matter of fact, it was almost theoretically impossible for human and _ikcythian_ blood to mix: their naturally antiseptic bodies lead to vaginal juices acting as a kind of super spermicide, while on the other hand, human bodies were so host to bacteria that the interiors of human females acted the same way, while almost nomatter how beautiful the woman, _ikcythian_ males couldn't shake the very idea that what they were shagging had _hair_, of all things! The repulsion can only be compared to that felt by those humans whose women shave their legs to those women who do not, upped in intensity by an order of magnitude or so. Furthermore, in the laboratory it was found that _ikcythian_ character traits were all vigorously dominant, and if forced, the resulting foetus would not survive beyond 15% of full development –leaving the very idea of a hybrid creature in the realm of impossibility. Despite the physical disparity in sheer size of genitalia, interbreeding would involve breaking down multiple barriers of sheer improbability.

So it was that, when the hotel managers sent up two of their human whores to his room, Judas' brows bunched in a tired way, as much as a boy would watching his beloved dog run into a wall for the hundredth time. But he did not even need to bother about explaining anything to the girls: he had them think it was the wrong room, then forget altogether in precedence of their next meal, leading nicely into what happened at the bar last night, and before long thoughts of invading his room were as far from their shriveled minds as the surface of the moon.

A thin, but genuine smile spread across Judas' face, as he sipped his distilled water and considered what would happened tomorrow.


	4. Defending Apothecary

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Defending Apothecary

That the regional crime boss didn't like some fluke impinging upon his area of operations, his property, can be understood; that, after a reconaissance by his thugs was turned back, he would eagerly send a lieutenant with crew, is equally understandable; that he and his son should go themselves with an entire platoon of hitmen to find out just what the fuck was going on, however, can only be accounted for as an act of hubris. Forty men to just take a peek inside a piece of property can be understood, but himself, in person, with his son? Perhaps he was trying to "save face" in front of the other Families, irrelevant of the peril in which he had put his own. After all, he thought, entering through the great north archway, nothing _seemed_ too much amiss.

Pity, that. In the course of the evening thirty-nine all ran out of the tower screaming the most dreadful cries, clothes torn and ragged, eyes glittering with tears and minds possessed of the horror that lay within (the odd hitman, in his own mad dash, had run himself through a dirty window and fallen the thousand-some feet to a quick death). Of the Godfather himself, no trace was ever found, but the incidence which occurred to his son is well worth recounting here –of course, by the perception of the son:

Running. Of course he was…

_RUNNING! Oh Gods! There it was again, that sound –he had BEEN here before… they had him, had him had him! There was no escape, the things were tailing him, chasing him round and round in circles in circles until… that arch, had he been there before? Oh Gods, oh sweet merciful I'm gonna look round the corner please please whatever I've done –oh… No one here, only their smell, that smell, that feel, they were around __that corner, oh please please no momma no dear God no __turn around, man!_

Running… short breath running short breath damn stairs fucking short… running, run. Can't. Think. CAN'T STOP oh fuck oh gods mercy please _please I wanna see my mommy again a door! Oh thank the stars __locked. Fucking why did it oak fucking wood cruel rusted knob oh my god that feeling again, run run runrunrunrun __run get _out_ that _door_ NOW only stuck oh please please…_

Cold. Air. Where in the hell, that sound, the wind, oh outside somewhere in this twisted hallway is the outside I can hear it and BAM there it is, a parapet, a walkway, okay okay okay I can't I can't breathe why? Why oh why what the hell is going on that sound, no, that sound isn't wind isn't wind isn't _OH SWEET GODS HE'S CALLING MY NAME!_ _The winds are calling my name_ oh Gods oh Gods that's not the wind and what's that now oh fuck oh fuck I can _hear_ him opening the oak door I can feel him, like a thousand needles oh I can feel him he's finally on his way, down the hall, but he's not gonna catch me _no! No!_ Where's next? Gotta get off this palisade –what the hell fucking WIND oh shit it blew me down no no no that's not him its not him calling my name its _whispering_ it's _whispering oh Gods he's killed all the others and so many others they're still here even in death oh Gods he'll have me forever oh Gods oh Gods no!_ No! Gotta get up, running…

Running, slipping, the fucking door all doors are fucking stupid why're they here to stop me to catch me so he can… so he can ugh oh my Gods sweet sweet please please _mommy_… I didn't wanna come here I don't I don't wanna be here no, the feeling, he's there… no here's around the corner no he's, no, its servants, beasts haunting these halls not one oh my Gods so many so many oh mercy please no no _no can hear footsteps QUICKENING chasing no no RUN! Run RUN RUN_ oh please oh please maybe there no there no the cupboard no the box no the window, ah no he's _out_ there! I Can feel him he's close! Oh Gods no please!

I'm not I can't be lost I can't surely there's a way look I got in here I can just go back I don't feel him nor his beasts no what no its columns colmuns collonade, far as the eye can see this horrid place so high I can hear that whistling not whistles not wind whisper… oh no, no no not again please get away! Keep away! Please no Gods no oh sweet Gods _mommy! He's found me!_ Can't go there, no, he's over there, no he's over here so go back _no_ he's still over there no oh Gods please whispering, whispering they're taunting me oh Gods they're whispering what they're going to do to me after I'm dead oh please please oh Gods no _smoke, no smoke, mist its so cold, so wet, the hall fills with it no more please no more NO MORE! _What no not here not now another time please I promise another hour, please no no please don't kill me here not there not in this place no not under this pillar here no you wouldn't and bloody your fine hall no no please no sweet Gods no…

You.

No no please dreadful please you're dressed to fine so terrible no how terrible soundless boots no please don't he is gonna he _is LOOKING at me oh please! Oh no! No! The cup, what's in the… cup… please please SPEAK to me! Speak no don't just look with those terrible eyes no tell the mist to leave, tell the dew to go away recall it please its so cold cold as DEATH oh Gods oh mercy please please no… my mommy, she'll miss me please just one more minute no… please no… NO don't spill your fine gold cup, no, not on me no what is it feels cold so cold trickling smells stinks oh my God dripping on my spilling his cup on my, my head filled with BLOOD! An EYE! MY FATHER'S HAZEL EYE!_

_OH GODS, MERCY!_

_MOMMY!_

~

Judas was aware that any human's mind can only endure so much abuse before passing out from its own panic, and was well pleased with himself on the outcome of this performance: maximum fear in maximum time with maximum effect, indeed. He still had this teenage boy's body to deal with… perhaps he'd set him floating in some ocean or bay –but Coruscant had none. Oh well, that was a job for another hour. For now, he let the poor creature sleep away in gharish nightmare worlds of, now, his _own_ imagination, till he couldn't tell memory from dream.

Then, let them come. Then, after this child tells his story, and the forty tell theirs, then let them come. Let those dreams and memories sit and stew among the demimonde, let them sit and rot like a decaying corpse; if another criminal came within ten miles of this tower in his lifetime, Judas would gladly hand over the keys in awe of sucha Lion-heart.

Judas sipped what remained of his distilled water, and quickly made his way down the collumned great hall.


	5. Old Friends Long Gone

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Old Friends Long Gone

Judas' tower, renamed "The Apothecary Sanctum" on all the new maps, was nearly complete, and its vast dome, sitting at the very top of the Sanctum like a white skullcap, was being lowered in place over the most costly single piece in the entire project: his antique telescope, and its 10000-millimeter liquid-mercury lens wrapped in sterile shroud, aglow with the light of softly hovering construction-utility craft and surrounded by a swarm of worker droids.

Night had fallen on Coruscant. Hands behind his back, Judas strolled the stone-and-steel halls and corridors and passageways far below the activities of the pinnacle, his mind even further away from worrying about that vastly expensive piece of scientific hardware at the epicenter of all the dimly-felt thuds and booms and clickety-clatter of droid's feet. As it was, his tower had a definite gothic feel to it, imploring more "castle" than "building": it would be a joy to furnish every hall, plaza, square, balcony, and promenade to his liking (in consideration of rooms, there were only two in the entire Sanctum: his own, and one probably eternally unoccupied servant's quarters). The master did not expect guests, and neither much would appreciate them, he thought: being the probability of someone who, speaking, might say anything that caught his attention as intelligent, and that person knew where the Sanctum was, and cared to drop by –with these layers of improbability in mind, Judas was not only prepared, but had wholly intended from the very beginning, to live a life of solitude among the teeming masses of this city-world. Even upon the desperate appeal of the resconstruction architects, he overtly demanded there be no landing-pads hanging like metal drapery from the side of _his_ home: civilized people still knew how to knock, did they not? Or at least, this was the cliché he used (intentionally) for a vast sum of damn good reasons for not wanting, and indeed refusing to have, any damn landing or docking facilities for shuttles on his tower: the cliché was used to sum, and to ease discussion, as much as fire may well be used to heat a home and cook food and not only as a weapon of war or torture.

Yes, this will be used for a library, he would say to himself, strolling easily into a wide semi-circle of a chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling. Or, no, he would alternately think: perhaps, a theatre? Or auditorium? Or lyceum? Or perhaps, an aviary, or arboretum? Looking over his shoulder down the way he came, Judas might check just how close this room was to the exterior wall: if he truly desired an aviary, strips of stone might be knocked out of the wall, letting in an appreciable degree of sunlight. But no, it was not to be: the semicircle faced the north wall, and the question of architecture would leave a rather bizarre signature to the construction. Perhaps a library, Judas thought; or even a saltwater pool! The possibilities excited him, but it was neither novelty nor ownership that birthed that consuming, invigorating, etherally warming smile of his, calm as an infant in his mother's arms, sweet as parting, sad as sunset, patient as God; and those two violet eyes half-closed were the post-script to this echo of a heart heatedly romantic, yet sad with a secret grief and melancholy he was himself entirely aware of.

But he did indeed have a guest, one who was expected, though utterly without any sense of urgency: the monks had the habit of being late, and disdaining any aggravation so produced in their host as "impatience". They were a strange lot, he knew; one of the many reasons Judas was no longer counted among them: not so much eccentric, but possessing ideas that were incompatible with his, resulting in actions he had long ago found intolerable. A largely human society, he reminded himself proudly, saluting his golden chalice heavenward and taking a long draught of the ultra-pure ice-water: for "human" meant "corrupt" in his large doe-eyes, as in those of most of his thinly-spread race. But of course, if _you_ were hunted for several generations, and _your_ blood used as universal cure-alls and age-defying potions, and _your_ children captured and _their_ heads shaved (the very idea sent chills down his spine), well then, it was only necessary that you see the races responsible as little more than wretched vampires. The fact that he was a philosopher extraordinairre, as it may be said, only purified his rancid bigotry of a people he considered utterly incapable of purity, be it in mind, thought, or deed: it wasn't fate that a prostitute slept around; her choice, and from that perspective inevitable, taking no prophet to guess what she was to be up to next evening.

Feeling his guests pulse, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat, and inhaling deeply the smell of living blood wafting up from below, Judas made his way through hall and corridor to the high arch of his south gate, moonlight streaming through its wide pavillion arcade in silver pinstripes. The Sanctum's oak outer-doors were all open, their silver keyholes receptive only to the ring Judas wore, just as the webs he wove upon the gates of his tower would only receive expected guests and minds of a certain flavor. Of course, should any masterful Force-user attempt to force entry through his simple (though well-hidden and enduring) spells, well, he would be well aware of them by the time they tried to breach the third floor and the first locked doors on their way up. What with the current trouble in Coruscant, and the Galaxy at large nowadays, Judas had made his Sanctum secure: from its very inception, from the first hour after receiving the monk's message, it was intended to be a place of sanctuary and study from the world without: not just for him, but any of the pure of heart were welcome; Judas had made sure they would know so, saturating the marble of his Sanctum's central statue of a tall rider on a pale horse with subconscious whispers and thoughts sent out like radio waves from his high place: not necessarily of benevolence, but of calm, intended for receipt as the glow of a lighthouse in a storm. Now, if the mind be other than the desired type, the whispers would filter differently, being warped by their marred perception into, for instance, a repulsion, a blasphemy, or even a hatred…

But he was then at the door, scant three floors above the entrance terrace and its four cardinal pavillion-arcades, and upon the other side of the sweet-smelling oak there was an old friend. And the monkish emissary. Two guests; wonderful, his thought, gray eyebrow arching. Ring in the keyhole, with a wave the massive entrance opened before him.

"Good-evening Father Avrael; Master Jedi; I am the Astronomer, Judas."


	6. Loss of Temper

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Loss of Temper

With one hand holding his chalice, the other reached out to the side showing his guests the way onward, while his mouth like the horizon was tight. Their tall host stepped lightly aside: "Please, enter my home of your own free will."

Father Azreal immediately stepped forward, his rough garments rustling crudely; his Jedi partner moved forward silently. "So, Astronomer…" the monk began in an elderly tenor, "This is the 'Apostate's Sanctum', is it."

With a straight face, "I felt the name appropriate, Father."

Accent on the 'course': "Of course you would."

Violet doe eyes narrowing slightly, "But of course." Nodding to the Jedi, who chose to remain silent, Judas respected his choice. "This way, gentlemen."

Avrael was tall enough, though slightly shorter than his companion and a good foot below their lithe host: so it was that, when Judas extracted a white gem on a fine silver chain from beneath his turtle-neck, the bald monk was trapped in the shadow of Judas' shoulder and their silent third party. This was no great trouble to navigation through the Sanctum, but it did leave Avrael guessing half the time, and unable to appreciate a majority of the cavernous architecture positively sprawling around him. The Jedi knew this, and thought it an interesting insight to the shared past of the two; Avrael saw this for what it was; and Judas didn't particularly care what either of them thought of it, or much of anything at this point. His appreciable cold malignancy for Avrael was an unspoken, understood thing; the matter of the Jedi's presence, as in, the question of why was it here, was something else for Judas' mind to mull over.

But as for Avrael, there was no love lost between them.

"So, Judas…" he began, missing the appelation.

"So, Avrael…" the host interrupted, equally omitting title.

"However did you acquire that wonderful drinking-vessel, that hand-crafted golden chalice? Sweat of your worker's brow? Game of cards?" As he spoke the monk was lost in darkness, though if visible his eyes could be seen to never look directly at Judas. They never had, and never would.

"By the skill of my hand I crafted it; from the finest gold I crafted it, from gold I smelt in my own fires, gotten with money I earned with my own hands. As a businessmen my lowest worker made no less than five percent of what the CEO made, all with pensions written in stone and twice as strong."

"Oh really?"

"Inspect, Avrael; you have absolutely no other purpose in life."

"Oh, thank you for sucha grace. As if Judas could bestow personal worth."

"Inspect, _human_." There was an edge to the voice of Judas; many years of long debate had utterly hardened him to his opponent.

"Still a bigot, eh—AAAIE!" shriek promptly quieted, the old fool's body collapsed, writhed with hands at head for a second, and was still, softly breathing. A single bead of blood ran down Judas' forehead and was lost in an eyebrow. The Jedi walked on, unmoved.

It wasn't that Judas lacked patience, or the ability to remain utterly unmoved by verbal assault. But that this ancient enemy of his should be sent to inspect his sanctuary… that he should have this deceiver and corrupter within the walls of his own home…! There was a time when he tried to reason with the unreasonable; a time when he ran from the riot; and a time when his games of mind were employed to their fullest, to avoid confrontation. But not here, not now, not with him. Not again. Like the semitic response to being forced to wear a star of David… _again_… Judas swallowed his passion and meeted out a Mind Blast as justly dizzying consequences.

Minutes passed, always gaining height, always ascending the stone stairways, until finally they came upon a lift: "By in large the middle two-thirds of the Sanctum are empty, unused; we now go to the upper places." The sumptuous music of silence reigned between the two; the droids were no doubt finished with moving by now, focusing instead of welding and masonry and stone-cutting. Finally the lift opened into a wide expanse: a vast vault, in the center of which sat the huge cylinder of a mighty telescope, surrounded by computer hardware, with a simple padded chair waiting patiently at the eyepiece for Judas' eventual possession: the Seat of Apothecary.

The Jedi nodded to his host, and they two made their way to one of the four utility lifts at the dome's perimeter: they lead up scaffolding to a crown-like cat walk as high as the dome itself, lit from below by four natural-gas torches burning brilliantly when the telescope wasn't in use. The two men slowly paced around its vast cirlce, the wind a thin whistle about their clothes.

"Why have you come back to Coruscant, Judas?"

"Oh come now Mace, I have become no Sith Lord—"

"I recall you were dead, Judas. Killed by something we feel was a Sith Lord."

"Never was much of a swordsman, Master Windu."

"The thing was eventually confronted and killed, Judas."

"Better than not. But why no 'Master Ferreus', Master Windu?"

"No man dies and returns unchanged. That the philosopher-Jedi I once knew has returned from death, and yet with no great Truth on his lips to show for it, surprises me. And I find an empty tower, temple to your own vanity. Smells of the demagogue. Sithly."

Silence reigned.

"I find that I am not debating any given idea or item as such, but rather the purity of my character verses reasonable suspicions that are on the whole entirely circumstantial. But convenient for me, observe that I had absolutely nothing to do with any of this evidence against me: it is not merely circumstantial, but immaterial. Tell me, did it ever strike Master Windu that perhaps I am simply observing the stars, and making a Sanctuary for any who would seek solace from the world without?"

"'A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense; never for attack.'" The simple rhyme for teaching padawans the difference between the Light and the Dark rang crisp in the night air, recalling much more than Judas' treatment of his old enemy that evening: no doubt the Jedi Master had been watching this tower ever since planetfall. Mace stopped walking, while Judas continued on in his track. Seconds passed, and once he was a few paces away, Judas turned, calling out into the darkness:

"Thus the name: 'Apothecary Sanctum'. But I do not think this philosopher, alone and quiet in his study, poses any more threat to the Temple and the Order than the Temple and the Order to itself. Mace, _listen_ to me…" The old Master had turned to leave, but stopped, turning once again to face Judas. "What if a philosopher did return from death with the Truth on his lips, and it was that you were wrong? What of _that_, Master Windu? Have you ever conceived in your wildest dreams that there might be something amiss with the Code? Or may I now consider myself officially excommunicated, like so many others of so many other Ages, as the world and the Jedi march off into yet another Dark Age _with the plans for their own destruction in hand?_"

"It will consume you, Judas. And you will become that which first killed you, and Qui-Gon. You will become an agent of the Darkness you forebode will consume us all, and it will not be the Jedi, but _you_ who lead the world to evil. Or, at least, you will _try_ to."

Silence.

"Then we are at an impass, Master Windu."

"More than that, Judas. You have lost the Temple."

Turning his back on Mace, Judas whispered, more to the wind than himself or his guest: "I lost that long ago, friend. Long, long ago."


	7. Never Forget Where You Came From

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Never Forget Where You Came From

It was happening again.

A bloody-red blade; no, two! They glowed dimly in the moonless night, that vicious black-and-red demon face locked on to the Master and his Apprentice: their own lit, cobalt blue and violet. The highlands rang with warcries and clashes, violence and pain. It went on and on. But made a mistake, kicked and rolled downhill, come to a skillful stop run back up NO his friend and ally fell to the ground and rolled in a crumpled mass downhill, passing a few feet from his Master, eyes still open, tumbling uncontrollably into the loche.

_And he was next. Time would pass, and he would be next. Unless his ship came first. Fighting. Jumping. Slashing, blocking, oh damn that was close. Here it came, his ship, oh Gods thank you NOOO!_

_NO!_

_Judas' leered into those pitiless, ravenous eyes at the far end of the blade impaled through his abdomen, and the world grew dark._

_The world grew light._

_He knew his name. He knew who he was, and what happened. But who were these friars? Monks, they said. They heard the battle, found his body, turned it on in a machine, and seven years later their patient –him—awoke from his coma. Did you find another corpse? No, was there one Yes there was but… but thank you thank you thank the Gods oh thank you._

_Mind exercises? Sure I know about them, if subtle, a Mind Trick; if a bit more powerful, a Mind Whammy. I don't understand? Sure, talk. Oh the subconscious, sure I know about that. Oh really. I see. Well, I'll try it out. Cool. Hey, what if I did THIS…_

Years passed with a flutter of his unconscious eye.

_No the Abbott will have to do without an explanation; is that what he thinks? What the fuck do I care what he thinks? I'm a philosopher, like all the monks were once, like your founders were. No, that means I ask questions. No no… that I have found real answers is beside the point, in that I am a seeker. The Psychic Hammer is utterly beside the point, it _happens to be_ that I have found some truth, that I have invented something that works. Of course he _doesn't _have a right to be concerned, no man has a right to be irrational and affect my life with their stupidity; he doesn't have to worry since I'm no monster. What? The fuck have you been hearing?_

Another flicker, a pounding of the heart. Judas turned over in bed, moaning uncomfortably.

_Still, Inquisitor, it remains to be seen what remains to be seen. I have spelled it all out clearly for you time and time again. I have said it a dozen different ways  a hundred times. That you disdain the theory is understandable; that you disagree for the sake of disagreement is morally reprehensible! Yes, yes, Inquisitor, you understand that much, good: I _don't_ give a damn what you think, so long as you leave me alone. After all that's what I thought the Order in its observatories did: give up on people, on the world, and studied the truth on their own, apart from the howling voices of the wicked: such was the religious impetus for our Monastic separation from the world without, and understandable, given the relative age of our current civilization. No… no, no no. You don't understand at all. You don't, because you consciously won't, because you subconsciously can't, and we are all too—NO I'm not 'hexing' you with my Jedi powers, get off it, man!_

With a nocturnal shiver, his brain skipped the painful passage out of the observatory, and he was in the office of the Regional Vice President:

Yessir I understand sir well if you say so, yes I understand he'll be missed but yes well promise I'm a philosopher not a businessman. Things to say, to you? Nothing you want to hear, not a damn thing. The CEO wants to hear it, you say. At his meetings. As his executive VP. Well. Sure!

Wind howls about the high tower; Judas buries his head in his pillow.

Pirate frigates pound the hull, their fighters brawl with ours, they take one of the tankers, they take another, a third explodes, there's a fire in the engine room, even the air up here is filled with smoke. Can't use this door, panel's sparking electricity fluttering where the hell are our corvettes? Gotta get to the hangar deck I can fly one of those sumbitches good as any. Goddamn, what happened to the lights. Make do without 'em: down this corridor WHAT WAS THAT SOUND? Pirates breached the hull. Great. Well at least a few of those thieves will pay a price for their wanton murder and carnage. Down the hatchway, through the blast doors, around the ladder well, follow the JP-5 fuel piping –whoa- a presence. Several. No, just two, but others nearby. These are guarding entry to the hangar, the –mm—two dozen others are within the hangar itself. Very well: get them arguing. Feed their subconscious, play upon their impulses, tease the heartstrings, here we go. Good, good. Not paying attention anymore, are you? Find that seed within them… feel it, hear it grumble, live as a volcano, force it to erupt. They cannot understand, can't even hear each other. With the bloodrush they can barely see each other. All they know is shouting, passions, pride, but keep the violence thing down, if they draw on each other it'll attract a helluvalotta attention… now slip by, wave to 'em both for shitz n giggles, and on into the hangar.

Just be casual, just walk casual, infect the minds of those who can see you, but they start to think anyway we're not powerful as God for crying out loud the leader? You want me to stop? No you don't, of course I can go about my business. No, I'm just passing through, thankyouverymuch. Yes. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll just be –yes I'm getting in the cockpit, you just said I could thank you. Sorry, no time, I can't hear you it's closed and sealed. Arm weapons, B-LAST the bay doors, watch all the pirates go flying out into the vacuum of space, warm thrusters, time to inch outta here.

Dodging melees and dogfights, the fighter's explosive entry into hyperspace woke Judas with a start.

But he knew the rest of the story, how he was left the only surviving member of the company's top brass; how he changed the corporation into Plato's image of Utopia; and how, feeling his work there was done, sold his shares and moved on in life.

Moved to Coruscant. Moved home. After all this time. Home.

Judas had considered himself "retired" from being a Jedi Master, from being a Monk, from being an Executive Vice President, from pretty much everything he had evern been and ever done (save the profession of "philosopher", that hidden hope so intricate to his heart and mind without which he would promptly shrivel up and die). Judas Aries Ferreus had intentionally and whole-heartedly made a conscious decision to be, as it were, utterly retired, that is, from history itself: no more riding the sine curve of history, no more suffering and screaming and fighting the insurmountable tide of the pansentient problem of corruption from within, "human" nature in every race! No more fist-raising and tower-shaking for him, no more! And if you asked him about betraying his calling as an Advanced Philosopher –in fact a mortal Messiah if you could find comparison between Galileo, Newton, Huss, Wycliff, Luther, and Calvin to their Christ—he would simply point to the question of volition, asking was it not his choice what destiny he would have; and then begin an offensive, observing the dark doom of all those others who fought the oncoming tide or resident evil of the long Dark Ages of the past. It was his choice, irrelevant of the mad dictates of any imperial God, to, if he would, side-step a gruesome and publically humiliating untimely demise!

His hatred of the human race, which he had applied to every race, was only surmounted by his older, superior, deeper, barely more powerful love of his own life, and thus (for he was not insane) a terrible and ruthless dedication to the priceless value of all other individual lives. His loathing of what men did with freedom of thought/action was only overcome by his positively fanatic dedication to his freedom of mind, and deeds. And the only thing that surmounted the violence of his rejection of evil, was the very hand of God itself: his embrace of Truth.

Judas hated for hate's sake what people could be, what life might be, yet what was not, and what they all were, and he was not, nor could by nature ever be.

Like a man beseiged by a tide of product advertisements, he stood despite them, and chose none of them, and rejected their very premise: so he was to the world about him.

A fist raised in opposition.

Only now, silent. Retired. For a time, maybe. For a time. For all time? But only a fool would propose to see down the swell of years so clearly. Maybe, only hibernating, till called, till the appropriate time…

"Retired! From the whole world! From all of History! Retired!" he harrumphed, pawing for his sheets and turning over back to bed: summing a bit of mental concentration, with a thought he passed into a dreamless sleep.


	8. The Man

SWEET CHILD OF MINE 

~

The Man 

His letter to the nearest Monastic Observatory of the Order to quote leave me the fuck alone unquote was writ with quill pen on milky-soft parchement, encased in a silver envelope and sealed with candle's wax, and the proud initial J. Giving this description of the terms of their truce –for the monks, for all their sub-conscious games made for winning debates of whether the Astronomers were "witches", were not in the business of using violence to achieve their ends. But he would not tolerate their presence on Coruscant, he would not, no, not while the Sanctum stood. Sending Father Avrael was an insult of the lowest degree; that he got himself thrown out was _why_ he was thrown out, for reasons that any idiot could have predicted from the very beginning. Or so Judas wrote, this and more, explaining clearly that he would send his results to them by chapter through the offices of the Senate Committee for Astronomic Sciences, and that that was the way it was going to be. His ultimatum prepared, Judas gave it to a droid who with incessant hydraulic buzzing promptly made his way out of the Sanctum.

Similarly, at the same time the second letter left the planet for its monastic destination, Master Windu received an externally identical sealed silver envelope: the first sent out by its origin. Slowly cracking the wax and slipping out the letter, he read, in letters fine and proud: "Purview your North Wall." There was no return address, nor signature, nor initial; but the Jedi had a damn good idea who this came from. Venturing into the Temple's parking lot, he read, in letters ten feet tall of glowing green paint (in an equally fine hand), "LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. Signed, Master Judas Aries Ferreus, for all to see." Looking North, there was the spire of Judas' Apothecary Sanctum ten miles away: paintball for the Force-sensitive indeed. The arrogant bastard had used twice as much paint on his name as his message.

Today was a green day for Judas. His longsleeve silk shirt was of a dark forest-green flavor, while the three-button vest (not, by any stretch of the imagination, made of real gorilla chest) was a soft, suede emerald so dark as to be guessed as black, and was indeed black in dimmer lighting. Shining black leather belt was same as always, though with a jade clasp; black suede pants, iron-shod boots, all the same. And, seemingly reflecting this mood, Judas' ring shone like a piece of  deep ocean on a gray day: a piece, a chip, of ancient abyssal emerald. Even that glossy clear-gray hair seemed to alter a bit in favor of the aquamarine for the occasion. Sipping his superbly freezing ice water, he made his way to what he had chosen for his auditoreum.

Every seat, empty.  The aisles were clean of garbage, utterly abandoned by dirt and grime. There were no posters lining the walls, no advertisements to be aired on loudspeaker, no restaurant and mortuary services with their adds side-by-side in the evening's program. Elegantly absent of the rude, base, and vulgar: the stupid, the choking, yearning, screaming, wailing, howling masses of burgoise proletariat. Which was what the middle-class was, he reflected: but for maybe a generation, maybe a year, maybe an hour in the tide of an entire cycle of that vile sine curve of the rise and fall of civilization, but for that instant, the entire middle class was in effect a collection or proletariat that had money.

Judas walked up the stone steps to the gloriously polished wood surface of the Stage. _Yes, _he said, _I may have been star of many plays, but I have not seen better days! _After smiling at his reflection in the finished wood, and the sound of his shoes tap-taping across its surface, he sat down at the only seat available: center stage, a glistening and glossy full piano of the ancient mode. _There are sloppy fools without money_, he mused, tapping the lowest key; _and there are sloppy fools WITH money_… he continued, tapping the very middlemost C; _then there are of course CLEAN fools with LOTS of money…_ a long, slender finger sounded the right-most key, sending its high pitch heavenward. _And then, there's ME._ And Judas began the moonlight sonata.

Soft and clear those notes sounded under the command of his elegant hands, patient and gentle, ruling the keys only as a true King. Those violet doe-eyes were at first locked, half-closed, on his instrument and its fine ivory keys: for so long had he been without this gift, this joy, that he had to give attention, not ear, to produce the flow of music and silences of the piece –his favorite, his signature. But given a moment the talent awoke, and his eyes closed; mouth so straight then bowed, dropping at the edges into a profound melancholy. Judas' mind was not on Father Avrael, or Master Windu, or the thousand cruel hurts and mindless injustices and ignorant malignancies committed upon him and his friends by the world. For now, he sung the music, he breathed it, and it consumed him. Every note became his blood, and food; not only _would_ he not err, but _could _not. That he was a proud man, of high self-opinion, was a flaw he shared with Brutus; but Judas would have pointed out it was not honestly a flaw, and the hero had fallen by other reason in the play. That he was proud, what of it? Had he not reason to feel superior to inferior creatures? Do not men feel superior to animals? And if one _chooses _to be an animal, and you chose rather to be a _man_, then how high your vanity, knowing superiority? If that be vanity "…then I have never writ, and no man has ever loved."

But he was not ruffled, not now. For now, Judas was at peace in his heart and mind. He reverently played out those last soft chords to himself, with one corner of the mouth slightly upturned in a weak but honest smile –which is more than can be said of so many—just as his ten thousand gray tendrils detected the entry of a weary heart upon the confines of his Sanctum.


	9. The Guest

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

The Guest

His guest was not running, not in immediate danger. Possibly wounded, bleeding, but the pulse was strong enough. Human… a female, at that. Wonderful. But, stretching out with his mind, Judas checked the webs he wove and saturated within the various statues and stones of the four gates and their arcades, and the grand atrium within: yes, they were all still working their sub-conscious magic, whispering as it were in the ears of all and perceived as their own. No, this was no Jedi nor Sith nor anything else of that nature: any sort of Force-sensitive, upon detection of the webs, would, out of reflecx, inspect them –_look_ at them, become aware of them, and might even try to see what they were and how they worked. Not that such webs could be easily undone. But Judas was also certain that this girl (for such was the hormonic mix of her blood, detected as she touched the core of one of the spiral staircases climbing up from the grand atrium to the second floor) was no vagrant nor prostitue: being his traps against such were still in place, the Sanctum was the last place within the ever-increasing radius of his influence that such creatures would want to be.

So he made his way off the stage, out of the auditoreum, through several passages, a corridor or two, down a fine double-helix staircase, then a low-ceilinged hall, before reaching the lowest locked door in the entire tower. Her slow march made for an arrival only seconds after his: concentrating, Judas' increased perception of sound heard the softest of paddings, as gentle feet came to a halt; a dainty hand pulled the door, and found it locked; a sweetly pathetic sigh, like that of a kitten, could be heard on the other side of twelve inches of oak. Judas inserted his ring, pulled out, and waved open the massive door.

She wasn't yet twelve.

Wearing greasy rags, tar-blackened and bloodied hands were not yet calloused or rough; dirty arms were young, and looked sadly as if she was just playing in the rain and would soon be fresh from a hot shower. Her new breasts were heaving up and down (for such was the consequence of various technologies used in the "modern" beef and poultry industry), occasionally choking from soot and smoke and smog and airborne grime: maybe TB, maybe not, but those lungs were new to the street. Everything about her body, from that torn skirt to her ruined dress and jacket run through with rocks and stains, from her hair saturated with mud and tennisshoes buried with it, was horridly dirty, horribly stained (seeming) beyond all repair. For in her eyes there was no doubt that she would never be clean again: everything so marred, but everything also so new. Even those eyes. That fragile face, the newly adolescent frame of her face, the still girlish nose, those intense eyebrows, that proud forehead, her noble chin, those womanly, untouchable lips –and eyes, oh how he would never could never no man ought to never no man could ever deserve and no man dare _ever_ lie to those azure eyes, just as blue and just as sad as his own soul.

But she went in rags, while he was arrayed as a prince.

And yet those eyes held him. For once Judas had forgot himself, lost in those eyes, just as suredly as they were lost in his, admiring his fine clothes, thinking it a kindly though dark stranger to go about in his monochrome sort of way and with that vain ring. But shelter, and warmth, and water, and food, and a bath were the priorities of her mind enchased within that head of country-butter blonde.

Judas could not remember when last any man held his gaze; Master Windu avoided his primordially penetrating gaze evening last, for he knew what Judas had become, or at least, his was a warped perception of a marked change; no Monk had ever dared, save the Inquisitor who only attempted once, before his brains leaked from nose, eyes, ears, and hole in skull; not even his poor dear padawan, little Peter, so brave. When he was a young philosoph, before he had seen the things he had seen, when he was a young man, They had dared. But loneliness had followed him from beyond the grave: everyone thought him marred, unholy, somehow tainted, other from the world of Light, a grey warrior among the holy soldiers of heaven. How ironic was the poetry of Hell. He was despised and disdained not because of some special magic emenating from those violet doe-eyes, but by the _magi_ that he had crafted by the adamantine machine of his own Reason. Not by the Mind Blast, nor Psychic Hammer itself: the Force be damned, his was real magic. The magic of a prophet.

But it was to her the eyes of salvation.

"Help," came the whisper from an exhausted kitten.

His mouth had hung open, his eyes had been wide with slanted brows the vision of pity, and the beginning of a father's love. But now those eyes flashed, the mouth hardened, and the great machines of his powerful mind were set in vengeful motion, questing to right the wrongs felt by his equally sensitive perception, the capstone of all philosophy.

Sweeping her off her feet with a long, muscled arm, Judas' concentration was twenty different places at once: first, the droids, to get a bath ready, hot water (but not too hot!); and food, prepare a vast dinner for the lady, first served in the Sanctum since its building: meats, vegetables, fresh fruits, cakes, milk, water, juice, break open the stores and light the burners! You, there, find some evening clothes suitable for the lady: five and a half feet, a hundred ten pounds, slim build, uh, mm, prepubescent for the most part yes just _go_ –but every word, just as every thought was calm and still, utterly, entirely controlled: when volumne was needed it was employed and the command spelled out with utmost panache. Storms of Force-ful energies stewed in his mind as if great boilers had been fired to summon a controlled firestorm: he connected to her mind, feeding her physical pain to himself, and with his great experience and skill thus utterly controlling and eliminating it from existence, for them both. He fed her comfort not by games of the mind and subconscious, but the old fashoined way: a man whispering sweet nothings into the ear of a woman. Judas remembered old techniques of endurance and pain-control in his run up through ten stories of his stone sanctuary; by the time he arrived at her bath his own heartbeat had never been above 85, and hers had lowered to the high 50s, as if the nameless guest was asleep. Attempting to sit her on the commode, Judas saw just that: between her native exhaustion, the rejuvenating heat and his overzealous application of pain-control ("messing with my mind" she would say later), the lady was indeed asleep, and now he was faced with a rather awkward situation. With the mind of a doctor in the ER Judas stripped away what was once her clothes but had since become an amalgamation of mud and asphalt and cloth and even skin, hurling them as far away from them both as possible, winching for her on more than one occasion; he lay her upon the soft blue carpet of his wide bathroom, testing the water with a hand and about to add a touch more cold water he stopped: she was human, of warmer flesh and thinner blood than he. Her host checked the water level in the bath approximating for displacement; satisfied, he gingerly, ever so gently, with one arm under her naked, crusted knees and the other beneath her proud shoulders, he let her head doze in the crook of his arm. "Precious kitten, what have they done to you?" he whispered into her ear, lowering that wounded, prone form into warm water.

And now he was given a strenuous trial: should he just let her sit, dirty as she was, and awake soaked to the bone but yet not at all clean? What kind of host would give his guest, so helpless, a bath that didn't cleanse? And the droids could be counted on to break bones… on the other hand, what if she awoke to an utterly unknown man washing every inch of her physical body –surely _that_, if nothing else in this world, would be enough to frighten an adolescent into terror. Real terror. With a spell to her mind to, in a word, stay asleep, Judas did just as he intended: clean every single inch of her body, with real soap, and real shampoo, not the lesser nerve agents they sold as popular at stores downtown.

He was as precise as a surgeon, gentle as a dove, but puzzled as Watson without Holmes. After cleaning her body and wounds (and there were many), he carried her to what served as a sort of infirmary: just where he kept his medicines and did any chemistry he had the inclination to try. Judas took a sample and started a skin graft growing in a protein bath, while dressing the patch of missing skin that was her right knee. He sewed up the holes rent in her side, and back, and the six-inch incision made seeming by a pair of scissors in her thigh. His conclusion as to the nature of this last wound, Judas centered himself, then waved those two fingers over her body from head to toe: no shrapnel, no infestation, no bugs, no chips no needles no tacks no nail no screws nothing at all of that nature within her nubile body: he had gotten out all the shards of metal and glass from deep within her feet and toes and lower legs in the bathroom. But her heart…

It was a humming metal pump.

Small wonder why her pulse was so strong when she was so weary and had lost so much blood; Judas would have readily bandaged her if he had just seen the wounds beforehand! But the mud had worked to close them, and she had survived to find his door; now cleaned, they had to be addressed, and she would be on antibiotics for a good long while: he ought not use his abilities to fight this battle for her, for he could not defend her every second of every hour of every day for the next month against infection. But perhaps Judas could teach her himself.

"But I'm retired" a small part of himself cried, before those two violet eyes turned to see the sleeping face of his guest, so serious, but so peaceful. Something flashed across his face, and that voice died.


	10. Some Things in Life...

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Some Things In Life…

Blue silk shone as fickle candlelight flickered about her room, Judas looming tall over her wide, soft bed, watching those eyes flutter, and that serious face crease occasionally in joy so fleeting with dreams of comfort and calm, a warm house with food enough for tomorrow. Any droid that attempted to break the stillness and enter the room received a quick, static shock to his transistors: so had the dark host laid his designs.

Loosing the shadows from his handsome features, Judas reached up and clasped his shoulder-length hair back with a black circlet above his ears, then leaned fully into the relative light about the sleeping beauty, guest in his Apothecary Sanctum.

Silk sheets fluttered at the bed's edge, a forearm coming to rest at it's rim. A rich baritone voice whispered carefully and precisely into her sleeping ears, as two violet eyes flickered and danced with an ancient energy.

"What is your name, sweetheart?"

"Cath-er-ine.", came the clumsy reply, in three syllables; then "Christine.", it continued; and "Constantine." was conclusion to that matter.

With discipline of mind that had nothing to do with the Force Judas had every letter burned with infinite depth into the seat of his memory.

"Where are your parents?"

With the heartbreaking crumple of Catherine's forehead his heart fluttered and begged him never to ask her any more questions but to just let her be and not poke or prod or try for any knowledge, for what was knowledge but an endless listing of facts and what is that to a girl's sweet heart—

Then Judas swallowed hard: powerful mind, to get feedback from her consciuos like that. It was as if he had tried to pour water into a jug, only to find his cup _more_ full than before. Shocking and surprising.

"I don't _know_. I've never known. _Never_ knew them. Stop, please." She murmured. Oh that she'd not plead with him!

Of course: the problem of all hypnopaedic technique: the subconscious mind only knows two proper responses: _yes and no_. To the sleeping human brain, anything else is heresy. Anything else is pain. Thus Catherine.

So he advanced no more. Aiming his own high-powered perception at himself, long ago most of his delusions had been painfully burned away. That within his mortal mind there were locked doors and dark rooms beyond, he was entirely aware  --but more so, far, far more so, _he had the keys_, and had walked those halls; knew them well; and was at peace within. Which is several steps of impossibility removed from what that drear decimal, that horrible number, 99.99999 per cent, _of all people_, would ever accomplish, a point of pride he reveled in as much as suicide.

"Everything is done for its own sake, and any claim otherwise is delusion: I _will_ stop. My darling Catherine, sleep well." She smiled sweetly, and turned over; but Judas, in the embrace of a deep melancholy, left her room for the streets.

~

Pondering as he often did why there was a Divine imperitive that it rained as often as and only upon his exit from the Sanctum, its Master careened through the avenues of Coruscant on iron-shod boots splashing violently in puddles of the fat, cascading rain. Collar turned up, he wore neither hat nor hood, stalking as it were the streets with the cold, cold rain pouring as it was through (now) black hair, streaming sourly onto the back of his gloomy trenchcoat.

In the complete darkness at this level between lonely streetlights, his eyes were useless –so Judas moved with senses other than those of sight. For warning of human presence he could detect near every aspect of their circulatory system; but for general navigation, there was his training with the Force. How incredibly useful a tool it was! Pity lessons were foregone for all but the choice, and the elite. Typically of a type of mind, mindset, and worldview (in ascending order) that he disdained as intellectual ridiculum, but which ruled so much of civilization with as serious and fanatic a grip as any. As they all were.

But then there was Catie… candle at the center of a dark cloud stretching to infinity in either direction in Time, there was Catie. For whose sake he now moved like the wind through a downpour.

Finally Judas reached the nearest taxi stop: like walking into a stadium mid-game, the alley opened up to a thousand shops, ten thousand shoppers, and ten million flourescent signs all promising happiness if you just, convenient for them, gave them your money. A pair of newlywed men making out shuffled a little to the side, unaware they were keeping a three-foot distance between themselves and the dripping and tightly-fastened trenchcoated figure, looming tall and darker than the stormclouds above. The crowds all melted around the former Jedi and his bubble in their midst, hundreds of men and women, idiots taken advantage of, pin-heads whose stupidity was put to (for once) good use by one of a vastly more powerful stature, and their ambivalence to just that equally (ab) used. The more "wise" (read: fanatic) among them probably disdained all his fellows for walking in such a strange way, in such a strange fashion, holding all those others that succumbed, just as they themselves did, to his bubble as idiots and morons. Contemplating such Judas would have laughed grimly, were it not for his intense concentration: only a small bit used for "crowd-control", more for vision (preferred the Force in this sort of situation to his natural eyes, didn't want to even see the beastly things out here), still more considering what he was to buy, but the far majority spent on who he was to buy it all for.

Finally chosen, a taxi was summoned, and slowed to receive its client. The goat-being was given orders for downtown, and a certain store particular in the favor he held for it. But, as expected, Judas was given the –shall we say, scenic route, and was not only able to sample the "flavor" of various regions of Galactic City even he was not foolish enough to try and purge. To this end, as they pulled up to the humble storefront at the close of a half-hour, Judas paid rather for the five-minute cab-ride the meter would display were it not for the dishonesty of its gruesome captain. Finding his door locked, he telekinetically forced the lock and waved open his door; upon the protests of the goat being, Judas, with back-turned, commanded he just drive; so drive he did, straight into a telephone pole. But what with a low-velocity impact, the goat-fellow got out entirely unhurt but very pissed at the transit system's incapacity to fix potholes and place communications arrays. Judas' lips curled at the disgusting, corrupt, and wickedly stupid alien: _worse than human_. That which is easy for him to deceive has only itself to blame, and none other.

He entered the place, quickly closing its glossy wooden door with fine brass handle: an outlet of _Corellian Silk and Leather_, he once owned and governed thousands of stores like these spread all across the Inner Core. And once upon a time, he would've never allowed the hire of this female that now approached: one would think she had never seen nor looked at anything in this entire store, to be wearing such tramp outfit. But his successor was as good as could be had: another philosopher-Jedi-monk was simply not to be had! Hoping to Homer's _ho theos_ that she was not the manager, and that as a saleslady would leave him alone, but without impetus enough to paw her mind (being slimy and vulgar to the touch), Judas walked in the general direction of that which he had been considering for Catherine Christine Constantine. But his lady's antithesis approached undaunted by the fire in his eyes: she did not look into them. Not, she _dared_ not, but rather, simply _did not_.

Seeing the shimmering sable cowgirl-esque leather jacket, but simultaneously wishing some man of substance (who was also very handsome and good in bed) would buy it for her and entirely missing the, to you and I, utterly hysterical look on Judas' face, this silly girl opened her mouth. "Oooh, good _choice_. Your girlfriend will _love_ it. Now, you obviously have good _taste_; so why not see these over _here_?" That she ended every single clause with a ridiculous emphasis was just one more nail in a coffin riffe already with them.

Utterly controlled, lips in an entirely straight line, eyes intense but focused on the jacket's brass clasps, "Daughter."

It was as if those two syllables rang like the clanger of a bell within an empty skull. Slight pause afterward, before "Uh-_huh_, riiight. _Daughter_—you!" She hit him on the arm. "_You_ just don't want other people to know you're buying things for a fuck buddy who's barely _eighteen!_ You old cradle-robber, don't look at me like that, I _know_ this business, part'ner!" Mockery of a country-girl accent, based on the style of the jacket in his arms. How obscene. But what was worse was yet to come; for, just as he considered being indecent and asking "What makes you think I give a fuck what you think", she smiled and said

"You dirty old man, I _know _you!"

This was too much. He burst out laughing with a wide smile genuine as a bar of solid gold.

"Of course you do, honny! Of course you do. You've learned my secret, dearie." He sighed heavily. "Well dammit now that I haven't fooled you we might as well be honest. I don't know… these clothes, really, but _she's_ really into 'em. A petite girl for her age…"

All the while this nameless saleswoman had a sickeningly wide smile on her face (as in, you look at it, and in its utter indifference to the anatomy of the human face it yet stretched to absurdity in four directions), nodding and firing off semiautomatic 50-caliber rounds of "Uh-huh uh-huh-uh-huh."

"…but as I'm a jealous sumbitch and can't have ladies like you catching on to my game—"

"Something less revealing?" It was a profitable venture for her: sales was her talent, and damn good she had one. Judas was fully aware that he simultaneously admired her talent and utterly disdained the quality of her character. "Oh, we do so _well_ with that kind of style; I dunno but if that's your thing, then cool an all, but I dunno I guess the top dudes of this place—" here her face contourted in a gruesome warping of features designed to communicate displeasure in no uncertain terms, "—I mean, they pay me like well an all, but talk about a buncha _prudes!_ Anyway my man…" she laid a nail-bitten hand on his forearm, "…that's just the _thing_ for the _season_. You know, the 'winter' look is like _totally in_, even during the summer well that's a stretch well the _autumn_, y'know, early autumn and _spring_ y'know. So--!"

But a garrulous little girl's oral tangents aside, after about eight hours of shopping and hiring a Quasimoto-looking baggage man (who, in point of fact, hauled less cargo than his employer), Judas hailed another cab, and made his way back home with a week's worth of clothes for his _de facto_ adopted daughter –but as yet his powerful introspection had not considered his reactions to nor feelings for Catherine.

Some things in life are too holy.


	11. Kindred Spirits

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Kindred Spirits

"Quasimoto" and his employer made their way under the South Gate's arch, up its several steps to its arcade, then passed beneath the great vaulted atrium within; a stout push with hump, and the South Gate's door to the wide Lower Staircase opened wide. Three levels above, Judas' ring unlocked the tremendous Main Gate of iron, oak and steel; a telekinetic wave of hand turned it on its massive hinges, indeed the only way to open the vast door without great machines.

Standing at the threshold, the tall one put an arm before his partner. "No, man. This is as far as you come. For your time, the agreed sum: fifty credits." A long, white hand moved to his vest inner-pocket. "And cab fare would be reasonable; I suppose, twenty more, maybe twenty-five—"

A metallic ringing of capacitors accompanied the squat creature's production of a rather large hand blaster. Judas deftly shoved the bills back into his wallet and replaced the thin leather bundle back within his vest: an entirely unconcerned though somewhat annoyed expressioned ruled his handsome face, as he swiftly removed that drenched trenchcoat that had been unclasped some time before. The midget took a few paces backwards, and was slowly beginning to circle Judas, his circumference leading inward, to within the First Hall.

"'Ou 'an 'ake 'iss 'ard, 'r 'aizy, 'Astah…" two gristled and disintegrating thin lips rubbed together bloodlessly. "Th' 'allet, 'n 'll th' cr'dts. 'And 't owv'r. 'Ee 'oath 'oh 'ou 'an spurr 'or 'n 'at now, 'Astah. 'Et's 'ot be 'reedy 'ow, 'ow off all 'imes. 'Atsah 'ood 'oy. 'And 'it owv'r." Serendipity aside, even the well-travelled Judas had to resort to mind reading to figure out just what the bloody hell this midget wanted (not that he was about to give him anything, but it was knowledge nonetheless). The train of thought went something like //_You can make this hard or easy, Master. The wallet, and all the credits. Hand it over. We both know you can spare more than that, now, Master. Lets not be greedy now, now of all times. That's a good boy. Hand it over.//_

The idiocy inherent in challenging someone who just, with a wave of hand, moved a two-tonne door on its hinges, and at that, wielding in your defense a _pop gun_ of all things, would have made Judas grimace in a lighter moment. But as things stood, he told his onrushing droids to keep themselves unseen. He just stood there, and crossed his arms; jade ring began to shine like a star.

"Well, hunchback, it's your move. Whatcha gonna do?"

Skipping the tedious dialogue itself, and getting right to the translation: _//Hey now Master that's right foolish now, we don't have to get heroic now, you've got yourself a fine place with fine things, and your lady won't appreciate you getting killed like this. Not like this, a man should just know, well, the proper times and all, and this isn't it for you, Master.//_ He was obviously getting flustered, and a bit impatient, but a seed of doubt had grown in his heart that Judas had nothing to do with.

Until now the Master of the Apothecary Sanctum had been simply too lazy to try any mind games on this little dwarf. But, as Quasimoto had ceased to circle, Judas saw that a very little one would do the trick.

"Master Thief."

_//Made up your mind, have you?//_

"Take a step back."

_//I'll oblige ya…//_ Which he quickly did: and instantaneously, what with the whim of their host, traps well laid within two statues of lions, roaring at each other from across the way immediately within their Master's First Hall, jumped and sparked to life. The would-be thief then standing right between them jumped and hollered and yelled and might have screamed with the feeling of six-inch needles rammed into either ear, but he had no air left, not even to breathe. His blaster dropped to the floor, hands white-knuckled over his ears trying if he might to tear them off, legs sprawling and dangling as if he hung from an invisible noose, rheumatic eyes red-rimmed and tearing, every facial muscle quivering in unshaven agony with a scream that could not be heard. The incensed lion's granite teeth slowly dripped with ruby red delight, running down their carved mouths and dribbling upon proud manes, and henceforward, to the floor.

"Nowthen, Master Thief…" Judas leaned away from the frame of the great door upon which he had been reclining. He strolled slowly but directly to his quivering subject. "I am going to keep your weapon, I hope you can understand why. But as for yourself…" a dark smile, thin and lifeless with eyes half-closed, sprang to undead existence. "You may choose to go as you will." Turning his back on the now-suffocating midget, Judas scooped up the petty weapon, bringing it up to his furrowed brow for inspection. "Lions, release him!"

Gasping and crying and pleading and whining the hunchback groveled at Judas' heels. Glancing down to the worm, he kicked it in its ass. "Go on, get out of here you horrible thing! On your way! Or would you stay with the lions?"

In a hobbling miserable mass the creature was gone, to spread rumours of a haunted castle and the vampire-lord within.

It then occurred to Judas that the only reason for putting that pitiful creature through all that, was he was simply too lazy to put forth the little effort required to warp Quasimoto's mind to the direction he so desired. Remembering Master Windu's words, he considered that the only reason he chose this measure of torture was, of course, for its own sake, that being, preference of torture over diplomatic solution. But diplomacy, unlike torture, did not provide any reason for the midget to ever change: he would have gone and done it again, to someoone else without the skill of mind-trickery. However, Judas was honest enough to admit he did not have the welfare of others at all on his mind during the scene; though perhaps such played a part as a subconscious motivator (that such were viable as motive was a First Principle underlying his uniquely powerful methods of Mind Trickery), there were other methods of attack.

That he received pleasure from hurting the fool was, maybe, the key. As a First Principle, to receive sadistic glee from watching the execution of a mass-murderer is sick and twisted: though justly deserved many times over, it is still a bad thing to execute someone: though just, though right, it is a bad thing: a bad thing that ought to be done, but a bad thing nevertheless. Perhaps the motivator of pleasure in this case was the "Don't tread on me" idea embodied by so many righteous men fighting for their homes. Then again, perhaps the word "pleasure" to describe what he felt was incorrect, for in itself it violated the First Principle, while the emotions and ideas of the slogan "Don't tread on me" were more accurate, and conveniently of a far nobler calling.

It was then decided that to receive joy from running an enemy out of your home, and even, to receive happiness from his underestimation of that which he attempted to rape, was morally permissible, a lighter shade of gray, and that what doubt he had within stemmed from his own tiredness (sunrise was in a few minutes) and infant-learned brainwashing by the Jedi: words remembered from Windu were laced with cliches and phrases and methods of classical "thought reform", tugging at his heartstrings because he was once _one of them_.

Nabbing his trenchcoat he slid it on, neverminding to latch it shut; instead Judas slipped the blaster into one of its interior pockets, and flew down the First Hall with the tails of his long jacket trailing in the wind like a hero's cape.

"Droids! You may come in now!" he sounded amid the proud columns at the center, the crux, the four-way crossroads of the First Hall. Appearing from behind Egyptian towers of marble that plumed like trees across the vaulted ceiling, like so many munchkins the various working droids and his silver protocol droid (which he was considering as his First Servant, but only after observing how Catie would react to "him") surrounded their benefactor and leige. He tossed his trenchcoat to one: "Wash this. And you, remove the blaster from outta there, clean it up, and put it in the armory. You three –no, make that you four—go and haul the packages of clothes up to my room. You, I want you to do a forensic of the area: DNA, fingerprints, the whole bit: I wanna know exactly who that freak was. The rest of you, to your duties. Matrix, with me." Judas hung a left, continuing down the West Wing of the First Hall; coming across the proper passageway, he and the silver protocol droid were eventually at a double-helix stairway. As his Master was faster than himself, Matrix wasn't sure which staircase he had gone up: as both circled and interlocked with each other, but never crossed, his mechanical mind made a guess, and ran as fast as those whirring hydraulics could allow. Judas, abosrbed in thought, was entirely unaware of the half-made attempts of his servant to communicate some rather important information. All the robot did was follow, steadily falling behind, and stutter about "Sir, please if you would sir yes well I'm your servant sir if you would be so kind sir please if you would sir…", ultimately never getting a word in edgewise. As they passed a balcony, a golden ray materialized on the wine-red carpet just as Judas passed; and immediately, both could hear a single, high note, echoing soprano about the stone and wood and iron corridors of the Apothecary Sanctum from on high: the voice of the archangel crying from heaven.

But this chord was not "WOE TO THE INHABITANTS OF EARTH!" Rather, after a time it died and was replaced by the march of a song. Neither brain, flesh nor metal, could descry exactly what words were being said neither even what language (though Matrix had a much better idea in that department than his Master), but that it was a profound song; a piece of sublime truth inspired by Immortality maybe, or Love; there was no question. In its sadness there was no sorrow, and the voice soared to tell of joy without hope. These things deeply touched the heart of Judas Aries Ferreus, a passionate man who mourned that civilization had even forgotten that such things had even been.

The one whirred about, turning at the hip, seeming to look for the origin (though he damn well knew what was going on), while Judas closed his eyes and, from the minutest of differences in the perspective of either ear, triangulated the exact position within his sanctuary. "The Crown of Apothecary," he murmured, and was off to the observatory. Within moments his lift echoed to a stop beneath the awesome form of his telescope; but Judas went to one of the four small elevators at the observatory walls, and rode it up to the catwalk encircling the dome-peak of his home, a thousand feet above street level. Matrix was not left a little bit behind.

Wind whistled and gusts screamed at this altitude, pockets of air heaving about the body as the sunrise flooded the land with light and life, the darkness retreated, and the world warmed. Coruscant's bloated sun had barely broke the horizon and had dyed everything crimson and red, like the lidless Eye of some vast serpent possessed to swallow the whole world, and was scanning its prey one last time.

As it was a large dome the extremes of the catwalk were very far away: but still she could be seen, almost eaten by the red ameoba of the sun, leaning dizzyingly over the railing nearest to it and welcoming the dawn with a song she cried for herself: for its own sake, and that of her heart.

It was small matter for him to approach utterly unobserved. As she began her last chorus, Judas had been quick to learn the words: and there was no interruption as the angelic soprano was joined by a baritone strong enough to move the foundations of the earth. But they were soon over, in only a few seconds time, and they two stood there together, inches apart, and watched the dawn.

She eliminated the inches between them, suddenly, though softly, leaning her head and shoulder against her host.

"Hi, I'm Catherine." She said sweetly, and tiredly. Smiling faintly, "I had a dream where we talked, and I told you already."

"I know."


End file.
